Quick Synopsis

Scores of women have told me, with tears in their eyes: "My husband just won't talk to me! He is distant. He won't share things with me anymore. Even though we share the same house and the same food, I feel so alone most of the time!"

The breakdown of marriage and family in our western societies is by now legendary. The statistics are terrible, but would be much worse were it not for the millions of couples choosing to live together nowadays without benefit of marriage. Since there never was a marriage, neither is there a recorded divorce if these couples break up—which they do even more quickly than those who bothered to get married.

Even so, Associated Press recently reported that some 19.4 million American adults are currently divorced, representing 9.8 percent of the population. So nearly one out of ten American adults is now divorced! However, of course, many others were previously divorced but have since remarried. By any estimate, tens of millions of Americans have at one time or another gone through the trauma of divorce, and other tens of millions have been deeply hurt by divorce: children, close relatives, friends and associates. It is sad to say, but divorce is "as American as apple pie!"